Valen followed her into the building and up the concrete steps to the bar. It was mercifully quiet, with only a few people hanging out at the round tables and the long black bar. The female bartender, a slight brunette, nodded at him and he led his mother to a booth in the corner of the room, away from everyone else.
She eased down onto the padded black leather.
Gods, she couldn’t look more out of place.
She would have been more at home in Heavenly Body, his favourite club, because Hellspawn frequented that place, but it never opened until darkness had fallen. This bar opened throughout the daylight hours too, and the downside to that was the fact it only attracted mortals.
Which only seemed to trigger a response in his mother that made her seem even more out of place.
Her bright green eyes darted around, taking everything in, abject fascination shining in them. When the mortal female came for their order, he thought for a moment that his mother would start questioning her, her excitement about being out in the world and surrounded by humans too much for her to contain.
She didn’t get out much.
Her deal with her mother and her role as a goddess meant she was allowed to leave the Underworld from spring to summer, but since having Keras she had turned into a stay at home mum and rarely left her husband’s side.
Hades was a jealous and possessive bastard.
It ran in the blood.
Valen was surprised he had allowed Persephone to come to him.
“Why are we not at your home?” she whispered and reached across the round black table to him.
He sighed. “I just don’t feel like being there right now.”
“Is the reason you tried to destroy Rome the same reason you will not go home?”
“That’s a little harsh,” he snapped and then regretted it when her fine dark eyebrows pinched together and she sat back, distancing herself. He huffed. “Rome is still in one piece.”
“Is it the female?”
He folded his arms across his damp chest. No way he was going to answer that.
Her small smile said she already knew the answer anyway. The bartender arrived with his drink and another one for his mother. He waited for her to leave, watching his mother closely so she didn’t surrender to her urge to question the mortal.
Persephone’s brow crinkled as she eyed her drink.
“It’s just juice.” He stirred the colourful plastic stick in his, mixing the grenadine with the fruit juices and causing the ice to clink against the sides of the tall glass. “It looks better than drinking water.”
Since he wasn’t allowed to drink booze like a normal person.
His brothers preferred water. Water was boring. But then so were his brothers.
“Dad got over Ares dating a Carrier yet?” Valen was sure that was going down well with their father.
Megan was barely one step away from a daemon. The only difference being her power to heal came from Hellspawn ancestry, one of the breeds that Hades deemed alright.
There were plenty of mortals out there like her who had dormant powers that came from daemon blood though, and if Megan had been from one of those families, Hades would have flipped his shit.
“I am not here to speak about Ares and Megan.”
The fact that his mother was allowed to use her name, and that she said it in such a warm way, went a long way towards telling Valen that Hades was already getting used to Megan being involved with Ares.
Boring.
“Tell me about the female.”
He really didn’t want to do that, but his mother was giving him that look that said she wasn’t going to leave until he confessed everything, or at least something.
No way he was telling her everything. There were some things his mother didn’t need to know about him.
“You were wrong about her name.” Could he leave it at that?
It struck him that he was fishing, and that had him pissed all over again. Hadn’t he decided to capture Eva, hand her over to his brothers and forget about her?
Persephone smiled at him over the rim of her glass. “I was not.”
He casually leaned back into the leather seat and toyed with the stirrer in his drink. “Were too. She’s called Eva. That isn’t the name of an angel.”
“Evangelina.”
Valen’s stomach dropped, plummeting to the depths of the Underworld, and his heart gave a hard beat against his chest.
Evangelina?
It certainly sounded heavenly to him.
Sweet gods, he could easily imagine whispering it against her neck, pleading her to have mercy on him.
His senses lit up, sending a shower of sparks skittering through him, and his eyes darted to the door as the lights there stuttered. His breath left him in a rush as he recognised the wicked curves of the woman before she stepped into the lights of the bar, flooding him with the same fierce hunger he had experienced last night in her arms, and the scent of roses and sin hit him with the force of a tidal wave.
Evangelina.
His angel.
CHAPTER 7
Eva needed a drink. A stiff one. Maybe two. Three. Who knew? She had spent the past few hours locked in her apartment, debating what to do. Run, or fight?
As it always would with her, it had come down to fight, but she still wasn’t sure who she was going to make her target.
Benares or Valen?
She parked her black and silver Vespa in a side street, pulled her helmet off and put it into the box beneath the seat as she mulled over her options. Her fingers worked automatically as she took the thick chain and locked the wheel of the scooter, and she sighed as she straightened and stuffed the key into her black jeans.
Valen had threatened to kill her if he saw her again.
Would he carry out that threat even if she was bringing him information?
She wanted to say that he wouldn’t, but some part of her knew that he might still go through with it. With her current run of luck, it wouldn’t surprise her if he killed her right after she told him everything she knew.
Benares viewed him as a weak link.
A weak link in what chain though?
She tipped her head back and sighed again at the darkening sky. Going in circles like this was going to get her nowhere. She had to make a decision, and although she feared Valen as much as she feared Benares, she was going to stick with her original plan.
Whether he killed her or not.
She palmed her gun through her leather jacket, the feel of it there if she needed it soothing her and steadying her nerves.
She would have one drink to keep those nerves in check and then she was going to drive to Valen’s apartment and put her plan into action. Hell, maybe she would catch Valen by surprise and gain the upper hand in the situation.
A bullet in his thigh might give her that.
It would certainly slow him down enough to give her time to make him listen to her.
She smiled to herself as she walked along the street, heading towards the small bar she often visited when her thoughts were weighing her down, imagining shooting Valen in the leg and trussing him up while he was preoccupied by the pain. If he was as good at his job as she was, he would find a way out of the ropes or whatever she tied him up with, but she would be long gone by then.
Would he come after her, or go after Benares?
Only time would tell on that one.
She scanned the street, checking for the millionth time that she was alone. When Jin had left her, Eva had followed the bitch to the edge of the city and had only turned back when Jin’s car was a speck in the distance on the road to the mansion.
Hopefully Benares was keeping his little spy occupied.
Eva shuddered at the thought.
Even if he had another tail on her, all they would see was her doing as he had bid, finding Valen and taking another shot at him.
Not that she was going to seduce him.
She would do her best to make it look as if s
he was though, just in case someone was watching her.
The guy standing guard outside the bar nodded as she approached and pulled the metal door open for her. She thanked him with a smile and a sway of her hips, enough to appease his appetite, and didn’t punch him in the face when he smacked her on the arse as she passed him. Her smile dropped off her face, a scowl taking its place as she walked up the concrete stairs, the blue overhead lights hurting her tired eyes and making it hard to see ahead of her.
She hated that.
It always felt as if she was walking into a trap.
As an assassin, she relied heavily on all of her senses, and having one dampened always set her on edge.
The light gave way as she reached the top of the steps and left the corridor behind, allowing her to scan the room for any potential threats. She swept the room from right to left, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.
Eva froze as her gaze hit a booth on the left of the room.
She recovered an instant later, before his eyes landed on her, and casually strolled towards the bar, pretending she hadn’t seen him.
Valen.
His gaze tracked her, burned into her despite the distance between them, but she shut him out as her heart pounded hard against her chest and the nerves she had come here to quash rose to new heights, making her limbs stiff. She eased into a stool at the bar as smoothly as she could manage and secretly blew out her breath as his eyes left her.
Eva flagged the bartender, getting the guy. He smiled at her and she shot him one back, because it didn’t hurt to flirt. She glanced at Valen while the man took her order for a shot of vodka. Especially when he was with a woman.
A very beautiful woman.
His lover?
Deep red hair curled around her slender shoulders, brushed the black strapless dress she wore and seemed to glow against her pale skin. Warmth washed over her soft delicate features as she spoke, an undeniable air of grace surrounding her, making her appear almost too perfect to be real. She looked like a damn fae, something from another world.
A goddess.
She was certainly holding Valen’s attention.
He was staring at the woman with heat and tenderness in his golden eyes, a look she had never witnessed in them before.
One that said he was close to the woman.
They were around the same age, and she was stunning, even more beautiful than Jin. She had to be his lover. No man in his right mind could be with a woman that beautiful and not want her.
Eva downed her shot and ordered another, trying to keep her eyes off Valen and his female friend, because the way he was looking at her, and she at him, was stirring all kinds of feelings inside Eva, ones she didn’t want to examine too closely.
She didn’t care if he had a girlfriend.
If he loved someone.
Last night meant nothing to her.
She swallowed the second shot of vodka, and the bartender poured her another and leaned his left elbow on the bar. His muscles bunched, causing his white shirt to tighten across them, and she tried to listen as he talked to her, the sparkle in his dark eyes saying he was flirting with her. She managed a few responses, even touched his arm, causing him to suddenly look there.
Valen’s gaze burned into her.
She shut him out.
Laughed at something the bartender had said.
The feel of Valen’s eyes on her grew more intense, heating her and making her heart pound, filling her head with images of last night and how fiercely he had kissed her, and how rough and possessive he had been with her, and the things he had said.
He could have died right then and wouldn’t have cared.
She drew her hand away from the bartender’s arm and nursed her vodka shot.
It had been the drug speaking. He felt nothing for her. He meant nothing to her.
A little voice taunted her, whispering that if he meant nothing, why was she drowning her sorrows while thinking about him?
Why was she jealous of the woman he was talking to again now, his eyes bright and flooded with warmth, the complete opposite to the way he had looked at her?
She downed the third vodka, hoping to kill the brain cells that were fixated on him.
Glanced at Valen.
The warmth in his eyes was gone.
Darkness crossed his face as he stared at the table that separated him and the woman, and then he lifted his gaze to hers. Pain. It was there in his eyes, written in every handsome line of his face.
The woman said something.
He shook his head and bowed it, shoved his fingers into the longer lengths of his blond hair and clawed it back. The muscle in his jaw popped and he ploughed his fingers through the shorter hair around the sides of his head. His shoulders sagged and his eyes closed.
What had the woman said to him?
Whatever it had been, it had hurt him.
Eva tried to drag her eyes away, guilt crawling through her. The conversation was clearly intimate, and she was invading their privacy. She had just found the strength to look away when the woman reached over the table and touched his left cheek, feathering her fingers over the scar there and then down his neck, unafraid to touch it.
Valen raised his head and looked at her through eyes that held an incredible depth of love.
Eva looked away from him, her chest tight and aching, and focused on her drink instead. The bartender had kindly filled it for her again. She turned the small glass back and forth in her fingers, telling herself on repeat to leave. Being here was only hurting her.
She needed to speak with him though.
He hadn’t killed her yet, so there was a chance if she approached him now and told him everything, he would take the bait and she would live to see another day.
She glanced back at them.
The woman covered Valen’s hand with her own and held it. His expression didn’t change, the emotion that had flooded it remaining even as she spoke to him and he responded.
An emotion that surprised Eva.
Vulnerability.
It was the final straw.
Everything she thought she knew about him turned on its head and she saw him in a different light.
He had proven himself a killer, someone without a shred of emotion. She had spent hours following him and not once had he shown any hint of softness. Everything about him had been hard and cold, his emotions locked down in a way that she had envied.
And then last night had happened.
At the time, she had been convinced that the passion and need, the desire and tenderness he had revealed to her had been a reaction to the drug, just as her behaviour had been.
Now, she knew it had been real.
He wasn’t a man without feeling. He wasn’t a merciless and cold killer.
He was something else.
She didn’t fully understand him yet, but she wanted to know him. She wanted to know this side of him so she could complete the picture of him.
Impossible.
He had made that clear to her this morning when he had thrown her out of his apartment.
If she went to him, the walls would come up, the emotions locked down again, held beyond her reach. She couldn’t blame him.
If last night had been real, then she had wounded him by denying remembering it. He struck her as the sort of man who reacted viciously when wounded, would do anything to protect himself from further hurt, and didn’t forgive easily.
Eva frowned as the woman stood and wished she could hear what she was saying to Valen, because the way he tipped his head back and looked at her made Eva’s heart break for him. Thumping music made it impossible to hear their conversation though, leaving her with only his reaction. The woman bent over and he closed his eyes as she embraced him, her slender arms wrapped around his shoulders and her lips pressing against his forehead.
When she pulled back, he opened his eyes again, locking them straight on hers. The woman swept the long strands of his hair from his forehead, the action
tender and filled with love, and said something, an anxious edge to her expression.
He nodded and the woman left.
Eva watched her go, waiting until she had disappeared into the crowd gathering on the dance floor before turning her focus back to Valen. He stared at the table in front of him. No. He was staring at the woman’s empty glass, a distant look in his eyes, one laced with hurt.
She blew out her breath.
This was going to end badly.
She flagged the bartender. “Two shots.”
His right eyebrow shot up and then he frowned across the room at Valen, muttered something and went to work. He slammed a second glass down beside her one, filled them both and didn’t wait to take her money. He walked away from her. She thought about calling him back, and then shrugged it off and picked up the two glasses.
What did she care if a man was in a mood with her because he thought she was interested in someone else?
She was probably going to be dead in the next five seconds anyway.
Eva pushed out of her stool, dragged in another deep breath to steady herself, and marched to her doom.
Valen tensed when she slammed the glass down on the table in front of him, arched an eyebrow and then glared up at her.
“You look as though your girlfriend just dumped you.” She shot for cocky as she flicked her hair out of her face and stood a little taller, hoping he couldn’t see through the mask she wore to the truth lurking beneath.
He scared her a little.
Just a little.
He had threatened to kill her after all.
Cold golden eyes narrowed on her, empty of the tender emotions she had seen in them just minutes ago.
“I thought I told you never to come near me again?” He pushed the drink away, leaned back into the black leather seat of the booth, and folded his arms across his chest, causing his defined muscles to flex.
Eva ignored the hot bolt of desire that blasted through her and casually took the seat opposite him, doing the opposite to everything her instincts were screaming. She was not going to run.
She slid the drink back across the circular table to him. “If you want, I’ll kill your woman for free.”
Valen (Guardians of Hades Romance Series Book 2) Page 10
